July’s meeting will cover working with dialogue using a unique method so the all attending members can be involved.
Without dialogue, you can only watch the action, and you will never be able to understand the emotional message. Different characters speak in a variety of ways. Real dialogue is getting into your character’s head. You have to know your character well before you can write their dialogue. Dialogue needs to be kept interesting, or you lose the reader.
Louise will have tidbits of information from a class called “Mastering Dialogue” that she took from Creative Writing Now.
Member Participation: Rather than just have a discussion, she asks that anyone who has work in progress or a completed novel to bring copies of any dialogue they want to share. You are also welcome to bring dialogue from a recent book you have read.
Bring a page for each character speaking and enough copies so each reader has their own copy. (Two characters speaking, bring two pages and two copies; three characters speaking, bring three pages and three copies, etc.) A member will then speak the character dialogue with another member, i.e. playing out the scene. She thinks it will make the reading more realistic and more enjoyable for everyone.
Each writer will have a few minutes to explain the set-up for why the conversation is taking place. Then the readers will read their dialogue. The listening members will have no more than 10 minutes to critique the conversation.